A Lee County circuit court judge said the state agriculture department needs to repay local residents for destroyed citrus trees, or explain why it refuses to pay. The Florida Department of Agriculture has less than 40 days to respond.

It can be hard to avoid lawn mowers, bulldozers and curious dogs if you spend a lot of time in a hole in the ground.

That's the habitat of the Florida burrowing owl, which as of January is officially classified as a threatened species.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) held a meeting in Lauderhill on Thursday to get public input on how to create new development guidelines to protect the owls in light of their new status.

Twenty-six years ago, Debra Lombard gave a hand to a friend who needed help teaching a theater class to children with special needs. The experience changed her life forever and marked the beginning of the Exceptional Theater Company (ETC).

Broward County schools will soon launch a challenge to a new state education law that steers more local dollars to charter schools and the head of the state teachers union believe more lawsuits will soon follow.

Gov. Rick Scott has vetoed a part of the state budget that would’ve compensated residents in Lee and Broward Counties years after the state removed their healthy citrus trees. The 16-year battle for reimbursement continues.

U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, is sponsoring a constitutional amendment to take big money out of elections.

The 28th Amendment would limit individual political contributions, require them to be disclosed and throw out the the legal notion that corporations are “people.”

“In the Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court said that corporations and wealthy people can spend an unlimited amount of money to influence our elections,” Deutch said. “The only way that we can respond to return democracy back to the people is to amend the Constitution.”